Coupling of conductive, convective and radiative heat transfer in Czochralski crystal growth process

This paper studies the conjugate problems of fluid flow and energy transport (involving conduction, convection and radiation heat transfer) within a material changing its phase. The analysis focuses on the Czochralski crystal growth process. The solidifying material is treated as a pure substance with constant material properties. The solution of the resulting 3-D, axisymmetric, non-linear problem is obtained iteratively using the commercial CFD package Fluent. The algorithm employed here treats each subdomain of the system separately, i.e. the liquid and solid phases of the solidified material, as well as the inertial gas surrounding both phases. Results of a test case shows the velocity field and temperature distribution within a simple system employed for the growth of a single silicon crystal. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.